Visteon Corp. Stock Upgraded (VC)

Visteon (NYSE:VC) has been upgraded by TheStreet Ratings from a sell to hold.

Editor's Note: TheStreet ratings do not represent the views of TheStreet's staff or its contributors. Ratings are established by computer based on metrics for performance (which includes growth, stock performance, efficiency and valuation) and risk (volatility and solvency). Companies with poor cash flow or high debt levels tend to earn lower ratings in our model.

NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- Visteon (NYSE: VC) has been upgraded by TheStreet Ratings from sell to hold. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and good cash flow from operations. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself, deteriorating net income and disappointing return on equity.

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Highlights from the ratings report include:

The current debt-to-equity ratio, 0.40, is low and is below the industry average, implying that there has been successful management of debt levels. Along with the favorable debt-to-equity ratio, the company maintains an adequate quick ratio of 1.43, which illustrates the ability to avoid short-term cash problems.

Net operating cash flow has significantly increased by 345.71% to $156.00 million when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, VISTEON CORP has also vastly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of 27.91%.

VC, with its decline in revenue, slightly underperformed the industry average of 5.2%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues fell by 14.9%. Weakness in the company's revenue seems to have hurt the bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.

The company, on the basis of change in net income from the same quarter one year ago, has significantly underperformed when compared to that of the S&P 500 and the Auto Components industry. The net income has significantly decreased by 63.4% when compared to the same quarter one year ago, falling from $41.00 million to $15.00 million.

The share price of VISTEON CORP has not done very well: it is down 5.52% and has underperformed the S&P 500, in part reflecting the company's sharply declining earnings per share when compared to the year-earlier quarter. Looking ahead, other than the push or pull of the broad market, we do not see anything in the company's numbers that may help reverse the decline experienced over the past 12 months. Despite the past decline, the stock is still selling for more than most others in its industry.

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Visteon Corporation designs, manufactures, and supplies automotive systems, modules, and components to automotive original equipment manufacturers worldwide. The company has a P/E ratio of 57.8, above the S&P 500 P/E ratio of 17.7. Visteon has a market cap of $2.6 billion and is part of the consumer goods sector and automotive industry. Shares are down 1.6% year to date as of the close of trading on Friday.

Editor's Note: TheStreet ratings do not represent the views of TheStreet's staff or its contributors. Ratings are established by computer based on metrics for performance (which includes growth, stock performance, efficiency and valuation) and risk (volatility and solvency). Companies with poor cash flow or high debt levels tend to earn lower ratings in our model.